WorldFamilies has been very pleased to provide a Forum for discussion of R1b1b2 issues - and this is a lively and interesting place - as we hoped.

There are - and will be - many interpretations and theories. It is appropriate to discuss all of the competing ideas - no matter who presents them and no matter what toes they may step on. Theories that are quite unconventional today could become the conventional wisdom of tomorrow - or may be way off base. That reality creates the need to discuss ideas and possibilities which may conflict - and we fully support that.

We actually encourage lively discussions about the issues. We do not, however, allow those discussions to extend to negative comments about the individuals who present them.

I wanted to ask a question in regards to DNA. My results came back and my results say that I match the Niall of Nine Hostages modal group. Most of my matches are from Northern Ireland and also from Scotland.My closest matches with Dna25,37 and 67 are with the O'Neills and McMurrays from Irleand and Douglas from Scotland.I have not come across any other McGraths (as of yet) that even are remotely close to a match not even in the 12 marker test and those show I match over a 1000 others but not with the same surname.There msut be other McGraths from Northern Ireland or Scotland, just maybe not tested yet or is not public.Anyone else coming up against this problem.I have been tested with Ancestry, SMGF and FamilytreeDNA and it is the same results with all the databases.

Thanks for the reply.I was leaning that way as well towards an NPE.But low and behold yesterday I got two hits on McGraths who match me on the 12 marker test. Considering that I have not had any hits on any database I have been on is promising.Waiting to hear back from them.I also have a theory on the name being McGrath even though descended from Nial.I was reading that there was also Ul Neill in southern Ireland as well before the time of surnames and that Brian Boru then conquered this group on his way to becoming High King. Would only make sense they would have to join a clan and take on the name when surnames came in around 1000 A.D.But anyway only a theory.Steve

Why do we always think it had to come from the west first than east to Britain, why not started out first in Britan than went east ?

Like I said, no one knows yet till more results come in.

Well, that is right, we don't know for sure yet.

But throughout history (and prehistory) the direction of population flow has been from the Continent into Britain and not the other way around.

It is a fact that the Celtic languages came from the Continent, and they got into Britain somehow.

Then there is the fact that genetic genealogy is overloaded right now with persons of British Isles descent, which generally means that nearly every R1b1b2 clade is well represented in the British Isles, especially at first. Yet L21, as new as it is (October of 2008), has already turned up among persons of continental descent in fairly impressive numbers, especially among Germans.

P312+ and its various clades are better represented on the Continent than in the Isles. It seems likely to me that L21 first appeared where P312 was spinning off its other children, that is, on the Continent.

Then there is Henri Hubert's book (originally two books), The History of the Celtic People. In it he gives some very good archaeological and linguistic reasons to believe the Goidels (Gaels) came from western Germany originally. Hubert also traces the origin of some the Brythonic-speaking tribes to Germany and does so very convincingly.

My own feeling is that flow of L21 to the Isles began with the Beaker folk, like the famous Amesbury Archer, continued with the Goidels, on through the Britons, some of the Belgae, and even no doubt many of the Anglo-Saxons, Vikings, Normans and subsequent immigrants.

I am new here as I got my testing results only last week. But now I am happy to join my “far relatives” here. With one of my friends, we did quite deep research on haplogroups vs. history vs. languages, so I would like to share my views on the non-Germanic branch of R1b1b2, namely the R1b1b2a1b (S116). This is the ancestor of two Basque (M65, M153), the Iberian-Atlantic (M167), the “British-Irish” (L21), and the Alpine-Celtic (S28/U152) groups. S116 appeared around 2500 BC, surely in the “Franco-Cantabrian refuge area” or “Greater Basque-Land” if you like. Its spread is very likely to correspond to the migration of the Bell Beakers, who spread all over Western Europe in late 3rd-early 2nd millennium BC. L21 is calibrated around 2000 BC, the earliest of all subgroups; U152 and the two Basque lines appeared around 1500 BC, while the latest to emerge was Iberian M167 around 850 BC.No lets have a look at the pre-IE language groups in Western Europe: we have the Basques, the Iberians, the Ligurians and the Picts, as well as Etruscans and Rhaetian who spoke a language related to Lemnian, Cretan and Cypriot. Etruscan and Rhaetian thus can not originate from Western Europe, they are more likely the language of the Neolithic settlers (Hg E-M78). If you look at the remaining four, they correspond very well to the subgroups of S116. M65 and M153 in the Basque-Gascon area spoke Basque/Vascon languages, M167 should have been the Iberian in modern Catalonia who spread also into the Southern part of the British Isles. L21 can be the last pre-Celtic inhabitant of the British Isles, Picts or anyhow you like to call them. S28/U152 is quite a good applicant for Ligurians or an unknown people who were later fully Indo-Europeanized. Now, around 1200 BC there were big migrations in Europe (see Bronze Age Collapse) and Indo-Europeans arrived in the Carpathian Basin. In Western Pannonia, the Hallstatt culture started to emerge from 1200 BC, which is a widely accepted ancestor of Celts. I think a few metal-worker Indo-Europeans introduced iron-working or the local U152 inhabitants learnt it from IE people. Thus the pre-Celtic language mixing with IE neighbours (most likely Illyrians) produced the proto-Celtic language (S28/U152) in the Alps region.In the later Hallstatt and La Tene periods, the comparative advantage of iron weapons helped the Celtic expansion all over Europe. Thus my final point in the topic question is that U-152 is Celtic and L21 is not, L21 are the pre-Celtic but post-Neolithic inhabitants of Britain. The appearance of L21 on the continent can be explained through two different possibilities:a) remnants of early L21 population, who stayed in the continent after the majority was pushed north by Celts and Atlanto-Iberiansb) result of later back-migration from Britain through population mixing in the Age of Migrations

Hate to say it, but I do not think Jafety R-U152 knows very much about what he is talking about. He appears to be a newbie who got R-U152 test results one week ago. I cetainly would advise him to read more on these forums, lists, and boards before jumping in to the deep end and offending the entire R-L21 population.

Hate to say it, but I do not think Jafety R-U152 knows very much about what he is talking about. He appears to be a newbie who got R-U152 test results one week ago. I cetainly would advise him to read more on these forums, lists, and boards before jumping in to the deep end and offending the entire R-L21 population.

I hope most of us are thick-skinned enough. Besides, we can't all be right on the first try.

Hate to say it, but I do not think Jafety R-U152 knows very much about what he is talking about. He appears to be a newbie who got R-U152 test results one week ago. I cetainly would advise him to read more on these forums, lists, and boards before jumping in to the deep end and offending the entire R-L21 population.

I did not want to offend the L21 population... And I am not a newbie as you mean. With one of my friends, we have done a quite comprehensive Y-DNA+Archeology+Linguistics research in the last 2 years and read many papers with many statistics. I did not came to this forum before only because I did not know my Y-DNA and I saw that everyone here knows so would be odd to post without knowing my ancestors.Look, I believe in "free thinking" and I do not think that every one of my points is correct. But it is worth have a look on issues from a different point of view.Most of the geneticists are not historians, and linguists are also not geneticists etc., but a comprehensive viewpoint (even if not scholarly) can help many times.

And plus on the L21: my theory does not say that all L21 people migrated to Britain with the Bell-Beakers. I am sure that many stayed on the continent and later arrived in Britain with the Celts or Anglo-Saxons. What I mean is the basic identity, I mean which Haplogroup was likely to carry which archeological culture or which language.

I hope this answer delights you and would not kick me off this forum...

"And I am not a newbie as you mean. With one of my friends, we have done a quite comprehensive Y-DNA+Archeology+Linguistics research in the last 2 years and read many papers with many statistics."

OK, no offense, but it appears the papers you are reading are what I term fantasy science. The amateur genetic geneaogy community is leading the way in this industry. I have already posted links for you to review. Here they are again: